What happens if they decide to swarm? Im guessing that they will still draw swarm cells on both brood boxes. In the case of a planned swarm would you make a split using the normal method and remove both queens to separate boxes?
You've touched on why I don't use this system anymore. The colonies need to be balanced in strength. If one side goes queenless, they will not requeen due to the presence of queen pheromone from the other colony.
I am having luck with combining weaker laying worker hives with queen right, big hives to kill off the laying worker and save the bees. Also in spring I can boost a weak hive with a strong hive by combining them. That works really well. I was just considering going with a 2 queen hive for the honey flow but now that I see your comment about hives not requeening, I will split them off instead. Thanks for sharing
You should get a larger honey crop if you remove one of the two queens (the older or not so good one) two weeks before the major nectar flow. This effectively cuts the brood rearing in half so the extra nectar will be stored.
i think good one should be removed with some brood and honey, so old one will not produce much brood and honey crop will increase and good one will start a new nuc for wintering. After the nectar flow old queen should be replaced with new young queen.
Now that you are a few years down the road on stacking the hives this way, Are you still doing it this way? I think this would be a great way to keep my Flow hives continually making honey. Craig Fr. VA
Hi Craig. Thanks for watching! No, I am not. I did this only in 2016 and 2017. As mentioned in the video, the main reason I was doing this was for access to the drone trapping frame during the honey flow. I no longer use that type of frame, but I do use a drone frame, and I no longer mess with it throughout the honey flow. Managing those frames became too difficult, every 21 days, once I began managing more hives. I work alone, so my time is very limited. One reason I gave up on this was the fact that if one side loses a queen, they will not requeen due to the pheromones spread from the other side. That was causing me a lot of lost colonies over the summer where they might have maintained themselves. This might fill your flow supers faster, as there are two colonies working on the one box.
I can’t believe that I didn’t think of that. Will definitely try this thanks. I would assume it helps with your operation since you need less bee escapes and the honey is all together.
Half as many QEs, yes. Those small covers though are extra. I found little benefit from doing this. I abandoned this practice for my ten-frame colonies because they don't requeen, being that the pheromone from the queen-right colony is strong enough that they don't realize they are queenless.
How did your honey harvest compare last year using this system over a one queen colony system? Thanks for getting back to me so quickly on my other comment. That was great thank you. I just found your channel and will have questions from time to time with your management style. Those deeps must be a bare to lift when they're full. I'm getting to old and use mediums for honey and deeps for brood. It's the back, hands, feet, and neck.
In my case, each colony produced the same amount of honey as with conventional supering. Filling and capping is a bit faster is the main difference. Yes, deeps get heavy. The extra cost per lb is prohibitive for me to use mediums, even though I really like those I have.
@@ThatBeeMan in order to make more honey from 2 queen hives you have to remove one queen 20 days before the main honey flow as to have less open brood to feed and more bees to collect honey .
@@RKalos 1. A broodless hive will always produce more honey due to the lack of brood to feed, two queen system or not. 2. Since brood is capped on day 9, there is no reason to remove the queen as far in advance as you suggest but, do what works for you. 3. As mentioned, increased honey production was not my intention with my use of this system. 4. Thanks for watching.
i was wondering if i could do this with three 5 frame nucs. i already have two double hives so i wanna also try 2 triple nucleus colonies is this possible using three 5 frame nucs and if so what would i need
Hello. I'm from Brazil and I didn't find much about this system in Portuguese literature. Can you clarify some questions for me? I know there is the vertical and the horizontal system (you use the horizontal system). Have you used Vertical? If so, is it different from horizontal? From what I translated in the comments, you just gathered the top modules above the excluder, without using newspaper or other management to avoid fights, is that right? In this two queen system do you notice an increase in honey production, higher than two separate strong swarms? Have you any idea how many percent? Sorry for so many questions and English like that, I use google translator. Thank you, big hug and Success.
I have not tried a two-queen system with one on top. Correct, the stack of supers is sitting atop a queen excluder, that's all. As mentioned in the video, I saw no increase in production.
@@ThatBeeMan OK thank you. sorry but i don't understand english. The files I read, translated on google, were experimental for increased production. In your case, what is the point in joining two stable swarms? worth it? Thanks for listening.
Why not giving more space to these Queens ? I don't see how 2 hives merges this way could be much more efficient, unless they have more space to make more bees (which will make more foragers...). Have you tried that?
Many people do feel that doubles produce larger colonies. The experienced beekeepers I follow are of a different mind. I think if a person does the math on how many eggs a queen can lay and how many cells are in a ten frame deep single, one will see that it is not possible for her to fill that brood chamber completely. I don't know everything, I rely on the example of successful beekeepers, my own experiences but not theories on how things may or may not work. My experience is that a double will produce no more, and usually less, honey than a single will. That is also the experience of local beekeepers whom I trust. If a person feels that a double would perform better, they should try that out and let us all know how it goes. Singles are the way to go in my part of the world. We're all learning. The fact that I make videos in no way suggests that I know more than anyone else, that's why I rely on my local mentors. Thanks for watching.
Man you got some nice hives, do you make your own Queens or did you buy them for these double Queen systems? I'm fixing the sub so I can see more of your videos thanks for sharing
Thanks! This was the summer of 2017. I had not made very many queens at that point. Last year I made all my new queens with just a couple of exceptions. This year I plan to make at least 60, hopefully, more, of my own queens. I discovered a system that works great for sideliners and hobbyists and since I am a small commercial operation, I was happy to find such a great solution.
Question, when you combine them by placing the excluder do you put a newspaper on top of the QE to slow them down a bit on the bees first meeting each other and the bees meeting each queen. ? Or do you just plop it down and let 'er buck? What if hive on one side is weaker ( good queen but less bees ) ?
I try to use colonies that are similar strengths. If one is weak, it will likely go queenless over the flow. Otherwise, I do nothing besides putting the QE on and stacking supers. I like this system and I'm using it again this season.
Hi Anton. To date, I winter in two deeps...the top one is almost all feed. Soon I'll change to wintering in one deep. I'll feed them up hard in the fall so they have enough to last till spring.
Hi Anton. Yes I do. I used only OAV in 2017, spring and fall, besides the drone trapping. I'd say my control was acceptable in the end but I also feel that my management of the drone frames could be better. I'd encourage anyone who wants to try this to visit Randy Oliver's article on the subject at scientificbeekeeping.com
How do you pull the frames from under the main center stack with out breaking the hive down? I have a hive system that use the same concept but you pull the capped brood from the bottom brood chamber and put it in the main stack and keep the queen laying to keep increasing the forger force to make more honey.
I can access the first five frames from the small side cover. If I need to access the other five frames, I can slide them over to the opening for removal.
No. The main reason I gave it up is that when one of the two colonies needs to requeen, the presence of pheromone from the other colony prevents the other colony from replacing their queen.
